In a recent interview with, SEGA Games CEO Haruki Satomi discussed his early history with SEGA, and a few of the things the company is planning on doing in Japan. Fans will probably be most interested in his statements on the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise.
First, CNBC notes that after Satomi joined with SEGA, he issued a statement later saying that he "betrayed the trust of the fans." This is referring to a 2015 interview Satomi had with Famitsu. Below is a piece of that interview, o💙riginally translate♒d by .
Haruki Satomi: “We did our best to build a relationship of mutual trust with older fans of Sega, but looking back, there’ve been some titles that have partially betrayed that [trust] in the past 10 years.”
In the CNBC in✱terview, he gꦆoes deeper into what he meant by that prior statement:
Haruki Satomi: "Simply that several years ago when we launched a Sonic game, the reception was very bad, there was a site called Meta-critic that aggregates the critics and scores games from 1-100, and at that time the Sonic game got 30 out of 100..."
Satomi would go on to say that the company disappointed its fan-base, and he told the SEGA team that "we should not release a game unless we 100 percent agree with and are confident of the quality."
Although not specifically listed in the interview, the game Satomi is most likely referring to is Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric, which released in 2014. Rise of Lyric was critically panned; the Wii U vers💧ion has a 32, making it the lowest rated Sonic game of all time on Metacritic.
Satomi would go on to say in the CNBC interview, h🌸ow he answers fans who inquire wh🌊en Sonic will make a comeback:
Haruki Satomi: "One of the answers I gave was the latest two titles which we launched last year, Sonic Mania and Sonic Forces, especially Sonic Mania which got a 80s, 85ish Meta-critic score and fans are excited about this game and people really love it, actual sales was very strong, and we introduced a Sonic animation series over the last two years. We recently announced the new partnership with Paramount for a Sonic movie project that's going to be available November 15th to December 19th so it's a little more than one year but it's coming soon and we're really excited about it. We can bring Sonic to the next level and not only bring the Sonic game to existing fans but we try to grow our fan base worldwide."
It is an interesting interview, because Satomi acknowledges the faults SEGA has made when it comes to delivering quality games. Even before Boom, quite a few of the games were negatively received. Many criticized the rushed-for-release 2006 Sonic the Hedgehog, the unresponsive motion control of Sonic and the Black Knight, and the "Werehog" gameplay of Unleashed. Boom was arguably the last straw for fans, getting overwhelming negative press. What went wrong? Rise of Lyric put an emphasis on slow-moving platforming over speedy gameplay - not exactly what one expect♈s from a Sonic game.
Sonic Mania bounced the series back, ending up the highest rated new Sonic game in years on Metacritic. It is interesting however, that Satomi mentions Forces. While Mania was acclaimed, Forces received average ratings. The highest rated version of Forces is on the Xbox One with a 62. While not bad, Forces did little to reinvigorate the franchise's quality; it was all Mania's work.
RELATED: 16꧃8澳洲幸运5开奖网:The Sonic The Hedgehog Movie Has A Logo
Satomi also seems to have high hopes for the Sonic movie coming out next year. Time will tell if the film can bring Sonic "to the next level" as Satomi hopes. SEGA did well with Mania, so if the company treads carefu🦩💫lly, it can make the hedgehog a pop culture sensation again.